Addressing all our needs
Scottish businesses turn to clever location technology to help drivers deliver the goods in lockdown, reports GILES BLAIR
THE massive increase in online shopping during the coronavirus lockdown has seen a surge in Scottish businesses using the innovative what3words location technology.
The company behind the scheme has divided the world into a grid of 3m x 3m squares and given each one a unique what3words address – made up of three words from the dictionary.
With traditional street addresses, there are often duplicates in large cities and postcodes cover many properties. But the what3words addresses are fixed, all unique and cannot lead to confusion over the location or be misunderstood.
So the technology – available either through a smartphone app or the what3words website – can enable the army of online shopping van drivers to accurately pinpoint the locations for all of their deliveries.
As well as being helpful when delivering to domestic customers, it is also useful when navigating large industrial estates, where regular street addresses often don’t exist.
Time is money, so the saying goes, and a recent test carried out by logistics giant DPD and Mercedes-Benz Vans in Germany found overall delivery efficiency was improved by 15 per cent when drivers used what3words to find locations.
The German auto maker is so impressed by the address technology that it offers what3words as part of its sat nav system.
The set-up also reduces stress for delivery drivers – who frequently have to seek additional information to locate an exact drop-off point – and anxious customers awaiting goods.
And bosses at the address tech firm believe that, globally, the improved efficiency could save the logistics industry billions of pounds every year as well as help slash the sector’s CO2 emissions by more than a fifth.
Given its accuracy, it is perhaps not surprising that many UK emergency services as well as the AA make use of the groundbreaking addressing system.
Both the Scottish Fire & Rescue and Scottish Ambulance Services will accept what3words addresses and now savvy businesses north of the Border, covering all kinds of sectors, are adopting it.
Mossgiel Farm, in Mauchline, Ayrshire, for
example, has pivoted from supplying dairy produce to restaurants to delivering to homes.
It uses what3words to aid its team of drivers as they do many deliveries at night, when the added challenges of darkness and not being able to call customers for directions makes properties even harder to find.
Fresca, in Edinburgh, provides pasta kits for people to make classic and modern dishes at home, and it has an optional delivery instructions box encouraging three word address usage at its online checkout.
The Arbikie Distillery on the east coast of Angus has added a prompt encouraging customers to add a what3words address to their delivery notes for an order.
And the website for Feragaia, Scotland’s first distilled alcohol-free spirit, based in Edinburgh, also urges buyers to use the location technology at the checkout.
Other companies making use of what3words include the Glenshee Ski Centre, Edinburgh jewellery and accessories firm Hannah Zakari, capital-based short-term let management company StayManaged and luxury holiday home outfit The Edinburgh Address.
ChargePlace Scotland, the national electric vehicle public charging network, has integrated what3words addresses into its online map so members can easily navigate to charge points.
Safe Hands Medical Services provides health and safety training and consultation, bio-clean decontamination, driver training, and more, and uses what3words as part of its navigation and locating casualty training, with many events held in Scotland.
A number of Scottish businesses and places of interest also list their what3words addresses on their websites to encourage visitors to be able to access them easily, including Land Rover Experience Scotland in Perthshire and Laggan Glamping in the Cairngorms.
Road Record witnessed its effectiveness first-hand with Land Rover in a healthcare roll-out on Mull in 2018.
Chris Sheldrick, the boss of what3words, said: “We’ve seen a huge lift in activity in the e-commerce sector. As more people go online for deliveries, the higher the demand for an efficient driving tool such as what3words.
“Our stats reflect this – our e-commerce usage is up by 833 per cent since the start of lockdown. The system helps logistics drivers unfamiliar with their delivery area to cut the time spent looking for exact delivery points.”